Why You Keep Starting Over in Fitness

If one day off track makes you feel like you’ve ruined the whole week with your health and fitness… this episode is for you.

Today we’re talking about why dieting often feels easier than maintaining a healthy lifestyle, how the all-or-nothing mindset keeps so many women stuck starting over, and the mindset shift that helps you build habits that actually last.

Because the women who stay consistent with their health long-term aren’t the ones who execute perfectly every day — they’re the ones who learn how to live between the extremes.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re either “all in” or completely off track with your fitness… this episode will help you understand why that cycle happens and how to finally break out of it.

• Why Dieting Feels Easier Than Maintenance
• The All-or-Nothing Fitness Mindset
• Structure vs Flexibility in Fitness
• How to Stop Starting Over

My Instagram: @lainijojo 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Her Revival Podcast, where we talk about building a healthy body, a healthy mindset, and a lifestyle that you actually enjoy living. And I got I got a good topic for you guys. I was just having a conversation with a client and I needed to, well, I mean, I had finished the conversation, but then I needed to pause everything else I was doing and record this because this is something that I personally dealt with and have walked through this with hundreds of women. Um, as I've been an online fitness coach for, oh my gosh, over five years now. Um, so I want to start with asking you guys this. Tell me if you guys can relate. Have you ever had one of those days where everything was going great with your like your fitness journey and with your nutrition? And then one thing changes. Maybe you got to eat, maybe you missed a workout, maybe you didn't track your food that day because you were super busy or whatever's going on, right? And suddenly your brain goes, Well, I guess today doesn't count. And then somehow that day's turned into two, and then three days, maybe even a whole week. If you've ever felt like you are completely on track with your health and fitness, or completely off the rails, you are not alone. And the reason this happens has a lot less to do with your discipline than you probably think that it does. Like you're probably like, I just need to be more disciplined. I don't, I don't think that's the case. Like maybe we could use a little bit more discipline, but I think there's more here. I think it actually has a lot to do with how most of us were taught to think about dieting in the first place. So there's a few reasons that dieting can actually feel easier than if your goal is to build muscle or reverse diet or just maintain. I don't know about you guys, but I definitely found this to be the case for me. But with a lot of my clients, I just have noticed this pattern over the years where we would be in a fat loss phase or we'd be dieting. And so we'd be in a calorie deficit, you know, the goal is to feel to lose, lose body fat, lose weight, you know, we see that scale go down. Um, and they're really consistent. They, you know, track their food, you know, they they make sure they hit their nutrition, they do their cardio, their steps, their lifting, um, and they they they crush it. And then we go to do a reverse diet or we focus on building and things just kind of fall apart. Uh, like they don't, they don't track as much. They're going out to eat, um, they're not really doing their cardio and you know, lifts and stuff aren't being as prioritized. And uh progress just isn't, we gotta we gotta lose some of the progress right there. Lose some of that momentum. And a lot of women just beat themselves up over this. And they're just like, why, why can't I ever, you know, be successful with these things? I can lose some of the weight, but I can't, I don't know how to maintain this, right? It's all it's on or off, it's all or nothing. And I think the first thing here, there's a few reasons that dieting can can just feel easier to be able to stay consistent with. And I think the first is that dieting creates very clear rules, right? And again, like we just we're very, very clear. You have a calorie target, macros to hit, a training plan, cardio, maybe steps, right? So your brain can categorize those things really easy. Either I followed the plan or I didn't. But there's also another reason that people don't talk enough. And I think that's why we see this happen a lot with dieting, where people are like, oh, I see these clear rules and I'm gonna stick with this. Um, but then maybe we're in a building phase or reverse, right? We still have those same kind of like rules or outlines, but it's it's harder to be able to stick with and prioritize, right? And I think with the underlying thing here, I've sat with this for so long. Um, I think that diet culture has absolutely taught us to just glorify dieting. Because for years, from when I was born in the 90s, so in the 90s, the the early 2000s, up till now, even it's 2020. Oh my gosh, is it 2026 right now as I'm recording this?

unknown 4:01

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Um, for years, we've been told that shrinking our bodies, losing weight, and being in a calorie deficit is the exciting goal. That's what the magazines had plastered all over, um, not only on the covers, but all throughout the pages. I remember even looking at like, was it like 17 magazine or Cosmo and just about the like, I'm so young as when I first saw those things. That's what before and after photos celebrate. That's what social media celebrates. You see somebody lose weight, and everyone's like, oh my gosh, you look amazing. What did you do? You are glowing, like all these great things. So dieting feels really purposeful, right? Because we are glorifying the crap out of everything that has to do with that. It feels exciting. But the phases like maintenance or reverse dieting or recombing or building muscle or even just building sustainable habits and that foundation that a lot of people don't have, those do not feel as like fun, sexy, glamorous. Even though those are actually the phases where the real body composition and lifestyle change really happens. And I don't know if anybody's ever, you know, for me, I would diet and then I would fall off and I'd diet and I'd fall off. And like the lifestyle didn't change, the habits didn't change, the body composition didn't change. And it was when I actually learned how to be consistent with all those other phases and all those other things. Okay, now I can lose the weight and actually keep it off, right? And I can actually look toned and I can do all the things that I needed to. But when people spend years dieting, they they start thinking about fitness in two categories. You're either on track or off track. Like that's it. You got one or the other. You get you get to pick, but you can't be both, and you can't be anywhere else, is all is where our brain goes with it, right? So on track might look like you're tracking your food, you're following the workout plan, you're hitting your macros, you're doing your cardio, you're not eating out all the time. Um, but the moment something looks different, your brain can interpret it as a failure. Maybe you go out to eat, maybe you don't track one day, maybe your workouts look a little bit different than what was programmed, and your brain suddenly says, Well, I guess this doesn't count. And that is where the all-or-nothing cycle really starts. The thing that most never most women never learn is how to live between those extremes. Because health and fitness, this doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? Like we have a job, relationships, family, social events, days when you're tired, uh, weeks where your schedule changes, we've got travel, you've got your period coming up, right? So expecting that you're gonna execute everything perfectly every single day, forever, just isn't realistic. And it's also not necessary to achieve or maintain your goals. Like, period, it is not necessary. We do not need perfection. Uh, my clients have heard me say this so many times, but perfection doesn't exist anywhere but in your mind. Nothing in life is perfect. So if our goal is perfection and that's a standard that we set, everything will fall short, everything will be a failure, everything will be a disappointment, and that starts that that shame and that failure spiral. So I beg, please, if you catch your brain with those thoughts of needing it to be perfect, kindly tell it, hey, that's actually not what the goal is. That's not what it's that is not a possibility, so we ain't shooting for that. Um, as close as we can is all that we need. We do not need to be perfect with your nutrition and your fitness or anything else in your health and fitness journey to be able to see results. And I would argue most people don't even want that. Let's say you could, um, or even let's say like you're in a bodybuilding prep or something. That's the only scenario where it's like you gotta nail your stuff. And even then, there's like little variables that again wouldn't be perfect, but you don't have to be perfect to make progress. That's something so many people misunderstand. Because what actually matters is consistency over time, right? If you eat perfect for one day or you do it for a week or a month, whatever it is, and you're perfect with everything, and then you just completely stop everything, it doesn't matter. But if you most of the time do the things that your body needs to get your goals, you will still be progressing towards your goals. You don't stop and you don't go backwards from that. So learning how to navigate real life while maintaining your habits is what actually creates that consistency that people want. And I want to talk about what like structure actually looks like here. Um, because this is something that changed my life and changed my fitness journey. Because there will absolutely be days where your life looks very structured. You wake up at your normal time, you eat your normal meals, you track your food, you go to the gym and follow your training program, you hit your steps. Those habits exist for a reason and they are incredibly helpful. Structure is what builds consistency, and structure is also what reduces decision fatigue. Because when you already know what you're gonna eat, when you're gonna work out, what your routine looks like, it removes a lot of the mental energy and back and forth that it requires to make those decisions and choices every day. And especially let's say you're feeling lower energy or just not really in the mood or whatever's going on, and you don't feel like doing something. If you had no plan in place, it's so easy to be like, oh, maybe I'll do it tomorrow, whatever. Like, uh, I just I just don't feel like it today. But you are, if you have a plan in place, you don't think you can you can be in the position, I should say, that you don't have to think and go back and forth and negotiate with yourself. You just say, hey, I have this structure in place for a reason, right? I was doing my future self this huge favor. So she didn't have to think, she didn't have to figure anything out and waste her energy. She just gets to execute and go, right? She just gets to know what she needs to do to reach her goals, like good, good for her, right? Those, that structure, like that's the purpose of that, right? And that actually makes healthy habits so much easier to maintain when it's a routine, when we have a typical way of going about things, when it's a structure. We're not reinventing the wheel every single time and having to fight ourselves of do I do this, do I don't? Um, and a lot of people, I a lot of people think that structure and they think that discipline are restrictive. Um, I think the connotation of those words are most of the time negative, right? At least for in like culture and the way that I hear people talking about them. But I I see them differently. I did not used to when I was like first, before I really was consistent with my fitness journey and all the things, and this bled into like my entrepreneurship and everything else. Um, but I see structure and discipline, I think, opposite than what most people see them as, or the majority of people see them as. I view them as what creates freedom for me. Because it it gives me the foundation that allows me to feel confident in my habits instead of constantly questioning myself. Like I don't have to question like I used to of like, is eating this gonna ruin whatever ruin my progress or how is this all gonna, you know, fit together? Like, did I did I mess up? Like I questioned things way too much, right? Um, and it was so easy to talk myself in or out of things that maybe weren't aligned with my goals. But when I gave myself some structure and I practiced that discipline and I strengthened that discipline muscle, it was so much easier for me to be able to, when I wasn't emotional or wasn't in the moment, I was able to actually sit and ask myself, like, what actually matters to you? What kind of standards do you want to have? What goals do you want to have when you vision this higher version of yourself? When you picture her, what are her habits like? What is her routine like? What's her morning like? What's her diet like? How does she feel her body? How does she move? And I can picture those things and then I can use that to pick apart and create, okay, these are my habits. This is my structure. These are the things that I want to stay disciplined with, because these are the things that are gonna make me that version of me that makes me so freaking proud and happy to wake up in myself and in my brain and in my body and in my life every day because I'm doing the things that make me hurt. You guys track it with me? Like they give me the foundation that allows me to feel confident in my habits instead of constantly questioning myself and not being able to move towards the things that I want. And once you experience the benefits of structure, and I would also say like it builds confidence because then you have a plan and you follow through. You trust yourself to follow through. You don't say, oh, I'm gonna start, you know, doing whatever, and you don't do it. You follow through that you build confidence with yourself. So now you can set your goals higher because you're like, I know that I can put in the effort and I can be consistent and I can get those things. So when you experience the benefits of having that structure and having that discipline for yourself, and I would almost even argue like devotion, I think is a better word for it, because devotion has this positive context. Like you're so devoted to this thing. I'm so devoted to showing up for myself and doing these things that I, you know, made this structure for. When you see the all the benefits of that, you often start to want it, like you crave it. I crave it. Not because you feel forced to follow it, but because you see how much it helps you, of how good, how good that you feel with that in place. Like it is a superpower. That was definitely the case for me. Um, but I want to talk about so like the structure, the discipline, like that's an important part. Um, with your fitness journey, with work, with so many other things with your family, with your home, like with everything in life. You have a little bit of structure of how you go about things, a little bit of discipline with stuff. Oh my gosh, it goes a long way. But there will also be days where things look different, right? Maybe you're traveling, maybe you're going out to dinner with friends, maybe your schedule gets thrown off. Maybe instead of tracking everything perfectly, you estimate portions, you prioritize protein, you stay aware of your choices, you listen to your hunger and fullness cues, you use the knowledge that you've built from tracking in the past to make decisions that align with your body and your goals. Maybe it's your birthday, maybe it's a celebration and you're not worried about calories that day. Maybe you plan four workouts, but you only got two in for the week, which I will say let's celebrate the two that we did versus focus on the two that we didn't. Maybe you don't have time for your full workout, so you do 20 minutes instead. Maybe you can't get to the gym, so you do something quick at home where you go for a walk because you still move your body. Both of those types of days can exist within the same healthy lifestyle. And I would argue that they need to, right? We need to be able to have that flexibility. But with this flexibility, it I think it feels like a little bit of a gray area. And like, okay, but what does that mean? Because this is where people start worrying, like, okay, am I being flexible or am I slipping back into old habits? Like, am I giving myself an inch and taking a mile? Like, how do I kind of know? Because all or nothing, that one feels a little bit more sexy, right? Very clear. I'm doing all perfect, everything. How do I know if I'm being flexible and it's in a way that I this is okay? Or I'm actually sabotaging myself here. The difference actually has less to do with perfection and more to do with your awareness and your intentions behind what you are doing. So slipping, like slipping back into old habits or like falling off, right? That usually looks more like you just stop paying attention entirely. You stop thinking about your food choices, your you just like you just, I don't care, right? Workouts start disappearing week after week. You stop planning meals, you stop prioritizing movement. It's not one flexible day or like situation, it's multiple habits that are slowly falling away over time. Flexibility looks different. Flexibility is a skill, and it means that you're still aware of your habits and still taking care of your body, even if the day isn't perfectly structured. Like I'll explain this to my clients. Like, you're doing the best that you can and you're honest in this. You ask yourself, am I honestly doing the best that I can, make the best decision that I can make in the situation that I'm in with the resources that I'm given right now? If that's the case, you are being flexible. Like it's it's that integrity to yourself. I'm giving myself the best that I can in this situation and I feel aligned with this choice. If we are not doing that, then it might be a little bit more like the giving yourselves an inch and we took a mile from there. Um, and for me personally, this was something that I had to learn the hard way. So when I was pursuing bodybuilding, my life was extremely structured for years. All of my meals were planned, macros were hit to a T. My workouts were all completely planned out, progressive, like there was no hitting missing anything. Steps, cardio, every single little detail. My schedule revolved around my training and my nutrition and trying to make it absolutely perfect. Um, that's kind of the nature of the sport of bodybuilding. And it is an extreme sport. Um, and honestly, at the time, I loved that structure. Like I've not always in health and fitness, but in things like with school or other things like that. Just I can just remember when I was younger, like I just I loved routines and structure and consistency, and like I didn't know that I loved discipline at the time, but that kind of did. Um, like I at the time I loved that structure and it suited me really well. It I will say though, it gave me a sense of control, and that's something I'm working through even now. Um, but it made everything feel very clear. If I followed the plan, I was doing these things right. I was doing everything I could to get towards my goal, right? And if I didn't follow the plan, I felt like I was doing something wrong. And when you live in that for a while, your brain gets really used to that level of control, like needing that much control over every little detail. But what I eventually realized was that my lifestyle only worked when everything was perfectly structured. So when I was traveling, when plans changed, when I wanted to go out with friends, suddenly it felt like I either either had to choose to like be fully in this bodybuilding mode or like kind of completely off. And I was like, but I'm so disciplined and I'm so rigid, like I don't think like that's not aligned with me. I can't do those things. I don't want to do those things, right? And then it really hit me that I didn't just want to be someone who could follow a plan perfectly. Like I love being able to hit all my goals that feel so good, but I didn't want to feel like I had to do that to be okay or to be able to see results or feel like I needed that level of control over everything. Um, or I like it's shit, Shay would hit the fan. I didn't know how to function with that, right? I wanted to be someone who could absolutely take care of my body and reach my goals, but be able to do that even when life wasn't perfectly structured. Because real life isn't like bodybuilding prep, right? Real life includes vacations and social events and busy weeks and unexpected changes, getting sick, injuries, so many different things, right? And learning how to navigate those situations while still maintaining my habits and maintaining the standards that I have for myself was actually one of the most valuable skills that I built in my entire health and fitness journey. And I feel like there's so much that I could say about how I kind of built that flexibility and that balance for myself. And I honestly, I've been working on some things behind the scenes. I don't know when you're gonna listen to this in time, but maybe I've already um finished it and kind of like released it yet and have hopefully helped, you know, hundreds and thousands of women with it. But I have a lot of things that I want to be able to share of how to be able to get to that point. So, like if this resonated with you, please stay tuned because the goal is not to live in diet mode forever. Structure and discipline are absolutely important, and especially when you have that positive view of them, it only adds positive and good to your life and to your fitness journey and to your career and all the other things that you have structure and like literally like running your home and taking care of your kids, like all my moms. Um, you definitely have some kind of structure and like discipline to make sure that you get up and you make sure you know the kids have breakfast and they get to school and they have this done and they have that done. Like you have to have structure and discipline to be able to do those things, and that's what makes you an amazing mom, right? So those are really important in that, in your fitness and anything else. But the real skill is learning how to maintain those habits even when life isn't perfect and structured. Because when you learn that skill of being able to have flexibility, you stop feeling like you're constantly starting over and really harshly judging yourself for not being quote unquote perfect. And you start actually feeling like you have this lifestyle that you can enjoy and see results from and maintain, but actually enjoy living this one life that you get in this one body that you get that you are working so hard to take care of. Uh, that is all that I have for you guys today. I hope that that resonated with you guys. If you want to chat about this topic, I would love if you wanted to, you know, shoot me a message on Instagram. I always have that in the in the show notes below. But otherwise, I hope that you guys have an amazing rest of day, evening, whenever you listen to this, and go do something that your future self will thank you for. Bye guys.